writing

After a long hiatus, I’ve decided I want to do NaNoWriMo again this year. I completed it every year from 2003 to 2010, then life got a bit crazy and… yeah. But the time has come to make it a priority again.

So to get back in the habit of focusing on creativity every day, I wanted a warmup month. Hence Blogtober.

Few things on the Internet bug me more, as an editor, an artist, and a human being who loves language enough to want to see it used properly, than the constant throwing around of accusations of plagiarism by people who don’t seem to have taken the time to learn what that word actually means.

Plagiarism is when someone takes someone else’s original work and claims it as their own, either intact or after making only very minor alterations that leave it still recognizable as the original work.

I have written before my opinions of the impact of print-on-demand publishing on the magazine world, both for the better and for the worse. Before I go any further, I would like to state one thing very clearly: I will never be against any outlet that provides creative people the opportunity to get their work into the world without requiring any financial outlay upfront. Ever. And because print-on-demand publishing provides exactly that, I am not against it, per se.

However, some of the people who, as a result of that outlet, are now running around bearing the self-granted titles of “editor” and “publisher” are frankly starting to piss me off just a bit. So, here’s a little quiz, some basics that really should be covered before you give yourself a title like that.

Print-on-demand magazine publishing has created a fantastic opportunity for creative people to get their work on paper and into the world. It’s like the Internet equivalent of a wealthy benefactor; you invest your time and creative energies in a project, and someone else picks up the tab.

Unfortunately, unlike an actual wealthy benefactor, print-on-demand publishing requires no real accountability and, as a result, professional conduct is falling further and further by the wayside.